The Perfect Pomegranate

The pomegranate is one of the many wonders of nature. Hidden beneath it's leathery exterior are a multitude of delights, packaged away like no other fruit. The tough skin makes extracting the pomegranate's. hidden treasures. Once upon a time we would spend what seemed like hours trying to extract all of the seeds. Surely there must be a better way?
Well, there certainly are. A quick search of the Internet will reveal the spoon trick. You can score the skin around the equator, halve the pomegranate, then paddle it with a wooden spoon over a bowl. Even with some of the gadgets to help, this always seemed a bit of a brute force and ignorance approach to me. It also leaves you with a bowl full of seeds mixed with pith which you have to pick over to separate. The delicate seeds are also often bruised, allowing the tartly delicious juice to leak out.
Surely there must be a better way?
There is. The structure of the fruit holds a secret key to not only extract the seeds, but also expose the inner beauty hidden away beneath the skin. If you inspect the the fruit closely you will find that there are a six just perceptible ridges running from the stem end to the blossom end of the fruit. These ridges are are reveal where the segments of the thick pith are separated by the seeds.

The flower is opened, and adorned with clementines

If you take a sharp knife, and trim off the blossom end, then score from the cut to just near the stem you will have turned the key in the lock. Now gently prise apart the the segments like opening up and orange, and you find yourself holding a flower of pomegranate seeds covered by the white membrane. This just peels off, leaving you with something like this to delight both the eye and the stomach.
This approach also allows you to snap off the segments and quickly seed them into a bowl without having to resort to abusing the poor fruit and its fragile contents.
So, the next time you see a pomegranate in the store, and it is firm and feels dense in the hand I encourage you to give it a try. You won't be disappointed!

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A Trio from Spain

Its been far too long since I've posted here. Between Nyls' arrival on the scene and a new role, time has been tight. That said, a couple of recent events have changed that.

First, we had a chance encounter with old friends at the Brickworks farmers market Saturday. not only was it a chance to catch up withDonna and Mel, we got to meet their son Ashton and niece Megan for the first time. Donna commented how much she's enjoyed the blog. Roberta from the Withrow Park market also commented on the hiatus recently. So, how can I disappoint my audience?

I have a long backlog of photos from the past year and half, and could easily dig into them for material. that would be too easy though, and to get things started off I.m going to stay current. With the cold winter months we've been trying a Spanish theme of late to mix things up and remind us of the sun. We've also been using a slow cooker fairly frequently, and enjoying time shifting our cooking efforts to the morning.

Two Sunday's ago it was a Spanish style beef stew, with tomatoes, black olives, and some different seasonings. To make this we reduced down some of Ben Sosnicki's tomatoes we put into stores last summer to make our own tomato paste, and let it simmer away all day. The mix of dry cured black olives and tomatoes gave the stew a distinctive flavour and richness that we haven't tried before, but will definitely try again.

Last week was Arozzo con Pollo. The otherworldly scent of fine saffron from the Spice Trader on Queen West filled the house and haunted our taste buds. Even Aija, who at times can be less than adventuresome, ate her fill of this delightful dish. That said, green olives are one of her favorite treats, and this dish had a fair number of them in it to keep her coming back for more.

Finally, today a boneless cross rib roast slowly cooked to tender perfection in a blend of good Madeira, some left over tomato sauce from the Arozzo con Pollo, rosemary, and thyme with a mix of vegetables to add flavour to the sauce. Once the roast was cooked, we removed it and the vegetables. Once the fat was skimmed a portion of the vegetables were returned and puréed into the sauce, which was poured over the lot on a Maiolica platter.

Nyls devoured all three. He's never met meat and vegetables in sauce he didn't like.

I hope you have enjoyed the reboot, and as usual recipes will follow at an erratic pace.

 

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Slow Food - The Beginning

This may not be slow food in the revolutionary vein, rather it is the first time we're experimenting with a slow cooker. And if you're going to do something new, you might as well pull out some stops. So, a pound of white turnips, new carrots, onion, baby king mushrooms, garlic from yesterday's foray to the Brickworks market, an eye of the round roast, our own basil, salt, pepper, and a can of Guinness later, dinner is cooking at 7:30 am. This may not be the first time we've started cooking this early, but usually that's just to get the stock pot going, or because we're canning.

Now, the waiting game begins... Time to make breakfast...

 

Brickworks Market Breakfast

In keeping with the Earth Day theme, we used yesterday's market basket provided the almost the entirety of this morning's breakfast. Normally we would turn out a frittata from these sort of ingredients. the big duck eggs with their brilliant orange yolks inspired us to try something different.

First, we sautéed finely chopped onion (the last of Ben Sosnicki's brought up from the cold cellar), with baby king mushrooms, cured whey fed pork tenderloin, and fresh baby spinach from yesterday's market.

Once done, we popped them into the oven to keep warm while making two thin crepe style omelettes. Each was made from two duck eggs, with a dash of salt, pepper, and herbs de Provence. Once done, the filling went in, and some Montfort dairy Toscano was grated on top and rolled up. A slice of olive-cilantro bread rounded out the plate, and there was a mug of tea to drink.

The end result was a lovely start to a Sunday morning. I hope your day started as well too!

 

Earth Day at the Brickworks

Looking at the logs it seems like almost six months have passed since my last post. Where has the time gone? Imagine, Nyls is almost one, and Aija's going on four! That said, while there haven't been updates, there have been lots of good times in the kitchen of the Hotel Cavell. This first post back won't be a retrospective though. Rather, I'd like to take this opportunity to post a look at the good things to be had at the Earthy Day celebrations at the Brickworks. Our local farmers had a lot to offer despite the season, as you can see here.

Chicken, duck and quail eggs, chocolate cookies, baguette and olive-cilantro bread from the St John's Bakery, spinach, cheese and cured pork loing from the Montfort Dairy, cider and Red Prince apples, baby king mushrooms. The question is, what will they become?

You'll just have to wait and see...

 

Marathon Meals

 Staying in a villa on the easternmost edge of Greece where it falls into the Aegean left us far from many amenities.  Despite the demand from the re-enactment, a few nice things were had to eat, "over there."

Here's a little round up before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The view from the pool level at the Ashley Villa.

Taverna take out the first night.  Way too much food!

Suzy toasts after a sit down dinner at a local taverna.

The view from my seat at Archeon Geysis, or ancient tastes, a restaurant in
Piraeus that only serves classicaly prepared food.  Honestly, one of the best meals of my life...

A braised goat leg in the process of being demolished.



We also did some cooking too... Chicken breasts marinading in the villa's rosemary.



Julian Faulkner, one of our companions, prepares dinner one night.

Her piece de resistance, greek yogurt with honey, figs, and cake...

Aija attacks a meal in a Monastiraki taverna.

A "quiet" evening out on the balcony.  A bottle of wine and a box of figs...

The view from the balcony...

Catching Up on the Backlog

A last minute trip to Greece to re-enact the 2500th anniversary of the Battle of Marathon put a bit of a dent in my spare time, and one of the first thing that had to give was posting in the blog.  That's not to say that there wasn't a lot of cooking going on.  Here's a little photo round up of a few things that have gone down or come out of the kitchen over the past month:



Aija spooning fig jam into a savoury tart. 
Some hamming it up for the photo couldn't be avoided...



Suzy happily engaged in the same task.

Aija demonstrating some dexterity by making the marinade
for a batch of teriyaki pork chops into an emulsion.

Summer vegetable salad from the market including purple beans.

A colourful farfalle dish whipped up in a hurry.

The tomatillo salsa was a big hit, especially as it was ready
when company dropped by unexpectedly.

Tired of seeing the bounty from the market yet?  Not me...

Sometimes the simple things are best... Canadian bacon, heirloom tomato, and
lettuce sandwiches on St. John's Bakery bread with the last of the 2010 pickled asparagus.